Police are using Pokemon Go to lure fugitives out of hiding

As Pokémon Go mania is sweeping the globe, police in one New Hampshire city are hoping to leverage its popularity as part of a sting operation.

The Manchester, New Hampshire police department recently posted a message on its Facebook page stating that a rare Pokémon character known as a Charizard was located in its booking area. Because the Charizard is such a rare character, however, the police department was only inviting a specific number of people to capture it.

Those lucky people, of course, are all criminals on the department’s wanted list.

It’s unclear if the sting has resulted in the arrest of any wanted criminals. We all know that most criminals aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed but surely, nobody is dumb enough to fall for this, right?

The department’s post has received nearly 25,000 likes thus far and more than 4,000 comments, most of which are praising the department for such a clever operation. That’s good news for police in general as relations with the public are currently tumultuous to say the least.

Sting operations like this are standard procedure for departments around the country. As it turns out, offering criminals a reward – like a rare Pokémon character – or some other prize is quite effective at luring criminals out of hiding.